Laurie Zuckerman has been culling through her Southern Arizona photographs from earlier this year and is posting these private roadside shrines in and around Tubac, one decked out with Christmas lights. There were a string of home shrines just south of the town in a rural neighborhood along the old highway to the Tumacacori Mission. The family shrine with the hats was on an old highway heading west of Tubac, likely the site of a car crash. Very sweet and simple shrines, contemporary statuary. Real folk-art gems, the grottos themselves. Over the years, the interaction with the family and the public offerings lends visual richness and soulful authenticity to these shrines. It is what makes Arizona so unique. I have seen only a couple of roadside shrines like this in New Mexico. If you count the Sanctuario de Chimayo, then yes, that is the pentultimate shrine. Southern Colorado has quite a few gems, too.
Here is one from a private residence in Raton, New Mexico. The grotto is comprised of beautiful chunks of colored slag, large and extremely formidable. A huge plaster statue of Christ stands behind a glass wall, first shrine I have seen behind glass or plexiglass.
On the road to Mountaineer, New Mexico, I came upon this roadside shrine just outside the boundary to the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. Wonderful structure, blends perfectly into the red earth hillside.
